Over at DailyKos, Devilstower makes a critical point. Forget the rhetoric. Forget the rationales. The Bush administration is trying to start a war with Iran. They're littering the ground with trip wires and executive orders and provocations and commands, each making war likelier than the last:
if you wanted to start this war, can you name some steps you might take?
How about blaming your opponent for all your troubles, even when you know they're not responsible for all, or even most, of what you're seeing?
How about issuing a license to kill for nationals of your opponent?
How about violating a diplomatic office of your opponent, smashing into the buildings, and taking away officials who were there at the invitation of the local government?
How about bringing in more troops on your opponent's doorstep, more ships into neighboring waters, and ratcheting up the rhetoric?
It's gotten so bad that Iraqi PM Nuri al-Maliki is begging us to keep our fight with Iran out of Iraq.
So let's be clear: The question isn't whether the Bush administration wants to go to war with Iran. It's whether they can goad the Iranians into giving them a cassus belli they think the American people will buy.
